Countries

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Pitcairn Island

..and now something quite different: Pitcairn Island! Unfortunately the card was not sent directly from Pitcairn Island, but that would just be too much luck as receiving a written and stamped postcard directly from there is extremely difficult. I'm not surprised when there are so few people living there, and travelling there is really difficult and it's not easy to get a permission to travel there (you need an approval of perfect health, amongst other requirements). Thanks a million for the swap, Kim!

The Pitcairn Islands form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific. The four islands – named Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno – are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and have a total land area of about 47 km2. Only Pitcairn, the second largest and measuring about 3.2 km across, is inhabited.

The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 50 inhabitants (from four families as of 2010: Christian, Warren, Young, and Brown), Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world (although it is not a sovereign nation). The United Nations Committee on Decolonisation includes the Pitcairn Islands on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The card was mailed from Taiwan, and the stamp is from a miniature sheet issued in 2008 to commemorate the Year of the Ox.